Mathilde Allibe, the CEO and founder of the elite architecture
and interior design company Secretcape, decorates homes
for some of the world's richest people.

"I usually renovate unmodernised homes for those who get a
property but don't have the time to oversee design and
architectural changes," Allibe told Business Insider.

Allibe's Secretcape designs the interiors for £10 million to £300
million homes across the world. Currently she has seven projects
on the go — six in London and one in Spain.

She has several teams that work for her all the way through
design, architecture, project management, finances, and
aftercare. The latter is a team that helps clients move in, once
the project is completed. Her clients give her budgets of
"millions, not one million" to design the inside of a house. Some
give a limitless budget.

"I like to work with people of taste, education, and
intelligence," Allibe says of her
clients. "It's incomparable to money. I don't like
talking about money so I actually delegate the talk about money
to a team I have."

To get a taste for what Allibe and her team do, she invited
Business Insider into 8 Chesham Place — a seven-storey property
in Belgravia, London, which was sold to someone for £19 million.
He is moving in on Sunday.

Mathilde Allibe, CEO at
Secretcape.Secretcape

After putting on slippers and sitting in one of the several
lounging areas at the Chesham Place property, Allibe told
Business Insider about the amount of time and level of detail
that goes into making the homes of millionaires and billionaires
so incredible.

"It isn't just about putting on some paint and getting in
furniture, what our clients want is extremely high end detail
that never crosses the minds of you and I. For example, clients
are very particular to the detail of how a window opens and
shuts," said Allibe.

"Some people want their entire home linked to their iPhone —
from light switches to full video recordings of what's happening
inside — to having safe rooms installed."

Her clients include the family that owns the Joseph clothing
line, "high-end world famous businessmen," a famous French
pharmacologist, and even royalty.

"I work for a Middle Eastern queen and a princess — and when I
say queen and princess, I mean a proper queen and princess, not
low-level ones," said Allibe.

Above all, she says that her clients are primarily foreigners in
London that buy these big beautiful houses or buy houses that
were converted into flats, only to convert them back to make one
luxurious property.

But Allibe said that while most of her clients who own these
properties are usually only in London sometimes two days at a
time and then not back for three months — they all want an
immaculate home that is fitted with the most luxurious and well
crafted item and cutting-edge technology and engineering.

Naturally, as you can imagine, there are many "unique" requests,
as Allibe puts it.

"One gentlemen wanted to have a jacuzzi in the bedroom with
mirrors," said Allibe. She has also designed a property that, at
the request of the client, is in "porno chic" — erotic interiors
and black walls.

It is part and parcel though that these properties have all the
amenities that a regular person would kill for while on holiday,
let alone in the home.

Chesham Place, for example, is incredible. It has a massive
cinema room in the basement with room for a big poker table, its
own gym and sauna as well as a ballet bar, and even a massage
room. There are also so many bathrooms that I had to be escorted
to one on the second to bottom floor because I got lost.

But the most unusual request? "the deadline."

"The deadline," Allibe says.

"Some people want the property to be completed within a year —
that's not going to happen. For example, like this property or
the Bond Street property (another project Allibe and her team are
working on), the building is divided into 5 or 6 flats. So, you
got to factor in how long it takes tenants to leave a property
then to have a proper architectural look and design and then
request planning permission.

"Buildings like these take two or three years to complete."

Part
of the private gym at 8 Chesham Place in
London.Business Insider/Lianna
Brinded

But you can see why.

Everything from the exquisite furniture, to the tableware
provided — which were handpicked by Allibe from North Africa — to
the finest walls and carpets to the little things like having a
tap in the kitchen that removes the need to have a kettle. The
level of detail is insane.

"Ignore the dust. Hopefully it'll be a lot more immaculate by the
time the client moves in," said Allibe when I took a look around
the gym.

I could not see any dust. In fact, I did think maybe Allibe was
just imagining it because her standards are so high.

"I don't just work with a client once and then say bye bye —
I work with them on their third or fourth property. After one
they usually are like 'I love it! Now find me bigger, better.' I
love it, it's such a fantastic experience working with the
clients and they appreciate the relationship we have and the
precision," said Allibe.

Allibe said that "if a client decided to sell the properties
after we have designed it, within six months, it will be sold
very easily and with a profit of 30%."

However, she insists her clients are not doing it for that. She
says that they put in so much time and money into their
properties because they want to make their house a home, which is
why she got into this business in the first place.

"I love my job and am passionate about it. I like to involve my
whole self. However, people see architecture and interior design
and think its glamorous. It's not always. If I didn't have my
team around me, I wouldn't be anybody, I wouldn't be Mathilde."